Open Days: A festive garden of native plants

May 10, 2013

One of the things we like best about Pru and Clark Montgomery's native plants garden is how well it fits with their house, a distinctly American Arts and Crafts classic that was built in 1906 with local stone. That front crescent of grass is all that's left of their formerly expansive lawn. / File photos by Mark Vergari/The Journal News

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What: Pru and Clark Montgomery’s New World Garden Where: 31 Sheldon Place, Hastings-on-Hudson When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. May 18, rain or shine Tickets: Open Days cost $5 per garden, no reservations needed, with proceeds going to the Garden Conservancy’s garden preservation projects Information: 888-842-2442, www.gardenconservancy.org/opendays, which has an excellent county-by-county schedule of the hundreds of private gardens nationwide that are open for just one day a year. This year, 18 Westchester gardens are participating Nearby eats in Hastings:• Sit-down: Juniper. Chef Alex Sze, formerly of Michel Richard Citronelle in D.C. and Alain Ducasse’s Adour in Manhattan, serves a lunch menu that includes soups, salads, sandwiches and a signature burger with roasted tomatoes, Gruyere and mustard aioli at this 24-seat cafe. 575 Warburton Ave., 914-478-2542, juniperhastings.com • Quick hit: Taiim Falafel Shack. Pita wraps or platters of shawarma, burgers and hummus, and of course excellent falafels (crispy on the outside, tender on the inside), all served in a tiny cafe on Hastings’ main drag. 598 Warburton Ave., 914-478-0006, taiimfalafelshack.com.

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Native plants are all the rage these days, but figuring out how to use them in an ordinary suburban setting can be intimidating for many home gardeners.

If you’re interested in learning more about handsome and environmentally friendly native plants and how they can be used in your own yard, a visit to Pru and Clark Montgomery’s 1-acre garden in Hastings-on-Hudson is a great place to get started. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 18 as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program.

“These beautiful plants are the meal tickets for spring nestlings,” Pru Montgomery says. “Imagine if everyone’s garden had a few.”

“This is intended to be a demonstration garden,” Clark Montgomery adds. “We feel very strongly that we want to encourage the use of native plants. We want people to come see the garden.”

The more we learn about our native birds, bees, butterflies and other insects, the more we realize how much they depend on native plants for food, shelter and basic survival.

Science aside, native plants are also very pretty, and you’ll certainly learn that in the Montgomerys’ garden — the flame-colored native azalea shrubs, the lemony yellow woodland poppies and the blue-purple blooms on the American wisteria vines are a delight.

And native plants require much less maintenance because they’re already genetically programmed to do well in our gardens, without extra water or other fuss.

One of the things we like best about the Montgomerys’ garden is how well it fits with their house, a distinctly American Arts and Crafts classic that was built in 1906 with local Yonkers stone. The floppy, woolly informality of the garden and the many stone pathways and terraces blend seamlessly with the architectural vernacular of the house, as though this garden was always here. The century-old trees add to the sense of timelessness.

We also love the sense of randomness. The plants have been allowed to self-seed and move themselves about in the garden, finding spots to their liking. Heucheras pop up in tiny crevices in stone pathways, and ferns of all shapes and sizes find their way into any moist, shady understory.

When they first met with garden designer and native plants guru Larry Weaner to begin the transformation of their garden from suburban lawn and yard into a wild garden with meadows and woodlands and a delightful lily pond at the very far end of it, the Montgomerys were very clear about the informal, lived-in look they wanted.

“We worked with Larry to create the whole notion of this as a garden to be in, to live in, to sit and eat and do things in,” Clark says.